Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Driving Around Baltimore, Fast

Pennsylvania Station at 40 miles per hour from my Miata, handheld as I drove by

These past few weeks I've been driving quickly around the city of Baltimore, delivering chemicals for a small company. I'm grateful for the work and I like my co-workers a whole lot, but I'm also glad that I might have a real job as a Data Analyst in my near-term future that will actually pay my bills. That, after applying for literally hundreds of jobs over the past years that I ought to be seen by employers as qualified to do, because I am. Yet no offers came, save this one. It's bad out there.

I don't mind the driving gig at all, lack of income aside. The weather has been gorgeous - cool, crisp fall mornings turning into shirtsleeve weather, top down days, perfect for the Miata. I get up early, drive to the shop, and wait for orders to come in. They do. I bang the addresses into my GPS, figure out where I'm going and take off.

If you are one of my Facebook friends, you've seen the various photos I've taken, usually from the car, of my travels around the city on this gig. They are not art, just me doing what I always do photographically - documenting the goings on in my life.

This photo epitomizes the job I'm doing. I shot it blind as I went by, and it is how the city looks to me as I blast around town from delivery to delivery. The Decisive Moment it ain't, but it documents a certain reality I'm experiencing, and I like this picture for that. It's how the job looks in my memory.